Gertrude’s Hamlet-2

     In bedroom scene, Hamlet and his mother’s dialogue also gives us hints about his Oedipus Complex. It is not a normal dialogue between a boy and mother. Hamlet questions her mother as his lover. He speaks to her in bewildering imagery that no son should ever use with his mother.  Hamlet is terrified by the thought that his mother could feel admire and desire for Claudius, the killer of her first husband.

                        “ Such an act

                          That blurs the grace and blush of modesty

                          Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose

                          From the fair forehead of an innocent love

                          And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows

                          As false as dicers’ oaths- O, such a deed

                          As from the body of contraction plucks

                          The very soul and sweet religion makes

                          A rhapsody of words. Heaven’s face does glow

                          O’er this solidity and compound mass

                          With tristful visage, as against the doom

                          Is thought-sick at the act. (Shakespeare: 40-1)

This closet scene is one of the examples of Hamlet’s aversion to sexuality. Hamlet uses here the phrase “sets a blister”, it is a reference to prostitute. He claims that she was prostituted to Claudius. He makes references to Gertrude and Caludius’ sexual relations. Despite his violence, he is nonetheless incapable of acting. Freud tells us, because he can not bring himself to take revenge from the man who has killed his father and taken his place at the side of his mother. Hamlet’s hatred replaced by a feeling of guilt which makes him remember that he is not better than the man from whom he is supposed to take revenge. Hamlet wants to correct his mother, and it is this obsession that shows the Oedipus complex in play. The theme is not revenge, but a conflict between mother and son. The relationship between Hamlet and Gertrude goes deeper than family, we can say emotionally.

 Hamlet’s behaviours towards Ophelia also show his Oedipal complex. He begins to hate women, because of his mother’s choosing Claudius. He becomes to insult women by means of Ophelia. Gertrude’s incest with Claudius makes Hamlet angry. He thinks all women the same. As Dr. James Rue and Louise Shanahan said that boys and girls chooses their wives and husbands according to their mothers and fathers.

At last scene, when Gertrude dies with poison, Hamlet kills Claudius. Hamlet’s killing him at the end of the play is also a clue of his Oedipal complex. He kills Claudius not for take his father’s revenge, but for his mother. When Gertrude dies, he has nothing to lose. He kills Claudius at that time. Also, in closet scene, he killed Polonious thinking that he is Claudius.

 As a result, for all these reasons we can say that Hamlet has Oedipus complex. Because of this, he is hesitant. He begins to get irritated with women, especially Ophelia. He delays avenging his father’s death for many months. Because he suffers from Oedipal complex .

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Tags: complex, hamlet, ödüpus kompleksi, psychology, theatre